In the Name of Allah?

Posted on February 11, 2009
Filed Under International, Justice, Muslims, News, Pakistan, boys, disfiguring, education, fanaticism, islam, madrassas, maiming, rape, raping boys, revenge, society, students, teachers, violence, violence against children | 2 Comments

While I was going through my Drafts box and my translations of various posts that had been submitted to this blog on a variety of important and interesting subjects, that accumulated while I was sick, I continued looking through the blogosphere for the latest stories that would engage my interest, enrage my sense of fairness, and so on.

With a H/T to my dear friend Nora (a couple of brilliant posts of hers are forthcoming on this very blog!) I came across the following story:

Acid attack on boy who ‘refused sex with Muslim cleric’

On his hospital bed last week, 16-year-old Abid Tanoli sat listless and alone, half of his body covered by burns that all but destroyed both his eyes and left his face horribly disfigured.

The teenager talked, with difficulty, of how his life had been destroyed since the fateful day in June 2002 when he refused to have sex with his teacher at a religious school in Pakistan.

The boy was horrifically injured in an acid attack after he rebuffed the Muslim cleric’s sexual advances. Now, he has alarmed Pakistan’s powerful religious establishment by pressing charges against his alleged assailants.

A teacher at the school, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and two of his friends are in prison awaiting trial for attempted murder and rape. All three deny the charges. A fourth alleged attacker is still at large.

It is the first such case to be brought against a Muslim cleric and threatens to expose a scandal of sex abuse within Pakistan’s secretive Islamic schools.

It is about time such practices were exposed, condemned and the those preying on children to feed their perversions be punished to maximum extent. Rape is not about sex, it is about control, in every case the scars hardly ever fully close. In the case of a minor they stay open far wider, festering and further ruining a life.

Abid was blinded and maimed in the assault, which he says came shortly after he rejected sexual demands from the Islamic teacher at a madrassa in a crowded, lower middle-class district of Karachi. “He threatened to ruin me for life,” Abid recalled, “but I didn’t take him seriously. I just stopped going to the madrassa”.

Abid, who was 14 at the time, told neither parents nor friends what had happened because, he said, he was ashamed. A few days later, as he played with his brothers and sister at home, he said that his religious teacher – accompanied by three associates – broke into the house, bolted the door and threw acid over him, screaming: “This should be a lesson for your life.”

Abid was taken to a public hospital, where doctors told him that he would be scarred for life.

Lawyers and campaigners against sexual abuse of children say that it is not uncommon in Pakistan, especially in the segregated surroundings of the country’s estimated 20,000 religious schools, but cases involving members of the clergy are rarely – if ever – exposed.

Lawyers and campaigners against sexual abuse of children say that it is not uncommon in Pakistan, especially in the segregated surroundings of the country’s estimated 20,000 religious schools, but cases involving members of the clergy are rarely – if ever – exposed. No other religion has such an iron grip over its people. Should the donning of clergy garb, while acting outwardly pious, confer the right to trample with impunity on every tenet of human decency, to engage in every imaginable depravity?!?!?

“They are either hushed up and sorted out within the confines of school, or parents are pressurised not to report the incident to the media as it would give religion a bad name,” said Zia Ahmed Awan, the president of Madadgaar, a joint project of LHRLA (Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid) and Unicef, the United Nations children’s fund.

Haroon Tanoli, Abid’s father, met strong resistance when he tried to take up his son’s case with officials at the school. He says that they offered to help him secure a cash payment from the alleged attackers, provided that he did not involve the police. Since then, he has been threatened with harsh consequences for refusing to back down.

“I despise hypocrites who sport huge beards in the name of religion and hinder the passage of justice in the name of Islam,” said Mr Tanoli.

“I had a beard, and all my four sons were studying in a madrassa. However, following this incident, the first thing I did was to pull my children out of the madrassa – and shave off my beard.”

Even as Abid was receiving treatment, the religious authorities pressed the hospital to discharge him. Mr Tanoli managed to get him admitted to a different hospital, where he is being treated free, although the family cannot afford an operation to save his sight.

Mr Tanoli refuses to back down, despite being offered one million rupees (£12,000) by the teacher’s relations if he withdraws the charges. He has moved to a secret location for his own safety.

“I despise hypocrites who sport huge beards in the name of religion and hinder the passage of justice in the name of Islam,” said Mr Tanoli. Yet, I have no doubt that while many decent, family loving Muslims are appalled at this state of affairs, the immense majority would prefer to sweep it under the rug, which in effect will only encourage creatures like Abid’s teacher to continue knowing there will be no retribution. The fact they acted so brazenly, only shows the prevalence of such despicable acts. Were this teacher the only one who ever made an advance on a student, he would kept it to himself. As lawyers above have said, these type of cases are far too prevalent!

To be fair, there have been many, many cases of teachers taking advantage of their students for the sake of their perverted sexual pleasures. Such cases have been well publicized in both the religious and secular sectors. What makes this case different, is that after initial attempts to keep things quiet, the teacher’s community finally turned against him or her and those who took such an unfair advantage of their position were always denounced and drummed out of their p[rofessions. In all cases the culprits served full jail sentences. Never however, regardless of religion or secularism has there been such a blatant, such a despicable case of revenge. Now is the time for decent society, to destroy the powerful world of clergy that harbors such people. They must be exposed, they must be made into examples so that no one dares use religion as an excuse for depravity. If this case represents a travesty, if this is a case of someone who appears as a religious Muslim merely in order to feed his unspeakable habits, Islam must cleanse itself of this teacher and the thousands like him. If this is merely the right of a religious teacher in the eyes of Islam, then Islam has no room in the 21st century among vastly superior civilized cultures!!!!

Chaim

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Comments

2 Responses to “In the Name of Allah?”

Magdalena from New York, United States on February 15th, 2009 2:35 am

Dear Mr. Chaim,
This is just one story about a male and a male, you surely must know how they have allowed the male on female assaults and attacks to go on for centuries. As you know, everything is the fault of the Jews. No matter what, you can be positive they will blame the Jews for the cause of this boy’s blindness.
Now I understand even more why so many of them have come to our priest quietly begging for ideas on how they can escape from their “religion” without it being known. We have new members and we were told to never ask them any question about anything involving their membership, only conversations about Jesus are permitted.
Your story helps me see why. I know this is happening in my brother in law’s church too and he is not even Catholic.
I just read a story about a man who cut his wife’s head off last week. I don’t even know why and I don’t care why. What I do know is what you surely know; these people are from the way, way, way back in the past and haven’t yet been civilized.
If i would be a member of their bunch, I would be frightened to death and I would do everything in my power to escape.
Thank you for doing this so much! All the time I read reports here of things they do to others and to themselves which are horrible.
Thank God for the Jews because they (like you) help us all see what peace really means while the killers want us to think that killing is peace.
Abraham Stubenhaus from New York, United States on February 15th, 2009 7:52 pm

All i can say to this lady who wrote above me is, that she is a great friend of the Jewish people, and I thank her for her compassionate remarks.
Also, in some of our institutions, we too have noticed many strange things happening. I won’t say more, but let’s just say, the really “religious” Moslems, have no idea how many former members of their own kind are running like hell. If they keep this up, we won’t have to do any fighting, just watching in amazement as this murdering and its unexpected reactions continue to unfold.